So a fair majority of citizens are open to being bribed...is that really surprising? Offer them new cars or a big screen TV and you'll no doubt get the same result....its good to see the Repubs have at least the higher percentage of responsible, thinking folks though....

I'm probably one of those 70% ... so I feel somewhat confident in saying the following:

You can get almost any result you want in a question, if you frame it in terms of helping innocent children. This is a testimony to something good in human nature, so we shouldn't be cynical about it.

I wonder what the following poll would reveal: Do you favor helping the children of Iraq grow up in a free society?

Or, how about a more sophisticated health insurance poll:

(1) Do you favor having the rest of us pay for the health care of innocent children whose parents cannot afford to pay for it?

(2) In the case of middle-class parents who could afford health insurance for their children, but are too feckless or selfish to buy it, do you favor
--------(a) doing nothing,
--------(b) forcing the rest of us to pay for it,
--------(c) forcing their parents to pay for it.

I have a major problem with this bill. The amount of earmarks on it. The largest ever is on it.

On top of that, the numbers don't add up. They are looking at doubling the cost but only 2/3 increase in people on it. Why are we not doubling the number of people on it, if you are doubling the amount spent on it?

States Stand to Lose Big from SCHIP Expansion
The majority in Congress, along with some Republicans, is working to expand the State Children&#8217;s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), which was created to provide health coverage to children in families earning too much to qualify for Medicaid. Many states favor the idea because they appear poised to gain additional federal monies with expansion, but the truth is nowhere near so rosy. For four key reasons, SCHIP expansion could lead most states to lose out in the end.

First, for many states, higher federal taxes will exceed increased federal grants. Because the expansion would be funded by a tax increase on cigarettes, many states stand to lose out in the law&#8217;s complex fiscal balance. This map gives the details of who wins and who loses. In particular, states like Missouri or Virginia will lose because they have many smokers or smaller SCHIP-eligible populations.

Second, even states that would gain from a positive funding balance still stand to face higher state taxes to pay for program expansions. Maine, which wins out from a funding balance perspective, is among these states. As a report from the Maine Heritage Policy Center shows, the expansion proposal would require $25 million in additional state SCHIP spending, which would likely come from higher taxes. Higher taxes are likely to injure Maine&#8217;s economy.

Third, most states are likely to experience crowd-out effects from expanded SCHIP programs. As a recent Heritage Foundation paper discusses, expansions in public coverage programs, especially those that target children, reduce private insurance. This effect is known as &#8220;crowd-out.&#8221; The Maine report shows that, among families earning between 200 to 300 percent of poverty, every group of 100 SCHIP enrollees will be offset by 60 individuals dropping private coverage. For those earning 300 to 400 percent of poverty, 73 will drop private coverage for every 100 entering SCHIP. The result is an increase in the amount of SCHIP enrollees but a much smaller reduction the amount of uninsured children. This is an extremely expensive way to increase coverage rates, and one that serves to undermine the private market on which most Americans depend for health coverage.

Fourth, crowd-out is likely to lead to higher premiums for state residents with private insurance. In part, this is because a decrease in privately insured users would force insurance company to raise the price of coverage to spread out fixed costs. In addition, as the Maine Policy report notes, low SCHIP payments also mean that &#8220;each Medicaid/SCHIP child uses at least $750 in care that Medicaid/SCHIP does not pay for.&#8221; This works to &#8220;increase the costs of private insurance for children by almost $370 per child with private insurance, or about 13 percent.&#8221; The result of these higher premiums, presumably, is that fewer families would opt to purchase private insurance.

And what is the benefit for which all these detriments would be borne? Providing government health coverage to a few children from families that are reasonably well off. In the case of Maine, only 2.6 percent of children are uninsured and not eligible for Maine Medicare/SCHIP. Fully 71 percent of those children live in families that earn more than $50,000 per year. Furthermore, across the United States, 75 percent of uninsured children will gain insurance within 4 to 12 months. Only 14 percent will remain uninsured for more than 2 years. Due to crowd-out, an expanded SCHIP is unlikely to reduce that last figure much. Again, this is a very expensive way to expand coverage.

Worse than its sheer wastefulness, SCHIP expansion undermines the private insurance system and pushes the country every closer to government care. While expanding SCHIP would have little effect on the amount of children covered, it would effectively push healthcare for children out of the private sector altogether.

The Maine Heritage Policy Center has done a wonderful job of explaining all of the negative effects of SCHIP expansion on that state&#8217;s economy and people, but those from other states shouldn&#8217;t be led to think that Maine is a unique case (though it does have an uniquely capable and thoughtful think tank) and that other states will not suffer the same ills. In fact, most states are likely to wind up worse of than Maine, which stands to gain, on net, some federal funding and already has heavy-handed government intervention in the health market. More needs to be done to spread this message to those who mistakenly believe that more federal funding is an unalloyed good for their states.

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